


A Little Big For A Spook

by lalucecita



Category: Dragon Age (Video Games), Dragon Age - All Media Types, Dragon Age: Inquisition, Skyfall (2012) - Fandom
Genre: Abhorrent use of hacking terms from someone who can't use an iPhone, Adoribull - Freeform, Alternate Universe - James Bond Fusion, Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Alternate Universe - Spies & Secret Agents, M/M, Swearing, Violence
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-09-08
Updated: 2015-09-08
Packaged: 2018-04-19 18:21:19
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 10
Words: 9,697
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4756418
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lalucecita/pseuds/lalucecita
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Kink Meme prompt: Iron Bull is a spy (007) and Dorian is the Quartermaster (Q).<br/>'Q' is compromised/captured and 'The Iron Bull', the code name given to the Inquisition's best spy, is sent to rescue him. Dorian turns out to not be quite as helpless as imagined (though he still needs rescuing)</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Encounter

**Author's Note:**

> So this is the first fic I've posted ever 0.0 I hope you enjoy <3 - Ace

The Iron Bull was growing impatient. Nightingale had instructed him to meet his new quartermaster in some uppity art gallery in Val Royeaux, rather than the standard practice of heading down to the labs, and he wondered whether this new touch of paranoia had anything to do with his recent resurrection from the officially dead. With a sigh, he checks his watch and rolls his eyes as a ridiculously dressed civilian settles next to him on the observing bench. Bull runs his eyes over intricately inscribed leather, tailored silk, and immaculate facial hair and eye makeup, his derision increasing by the second. When it becomes clear the stranger isn’t going to respond to his unconcealed glares, Bull settles on staring at the painting before him, an oil depiction of an outdated Qunari ship on its way to repurposing. He nearly groans aloud when the man beside him speaks.

“It always makes me feel a little melancholy,” the man states, his aristocratic accent betraying Tevinter roots. “A grand old war ship, being ignominiously hauled away to scrap. The inevitability of time, don't you think?”

Bull remains silent, but the stranger doesn’t take the hint.

“What do you see?”

“A bloody big ship,” Bull growls, shifting to leave. If the Quartermaster couldn’t be bothered to show, he’d just batter his way to the damn labs. “’Scuse me.”

“007,” the man interjects, “I’m your new Quartermaster.”

Bull halts his departure. 

“You gotta be joking,” he says flatly. The man seems to take offence.

“Why, because I’m not wearing a lab coat?” he asks primly. 

“Because you look like you just walked out of Minrathous fashion week.” Bull stares overtly at the polished buckles holding cloth in at the waist.

“My appearance is hardly relevant,” The Quartermaster snipes.

“Your competence is.”

“Brutality is no guarantee of efficiency.”

“And delicacy is no guarantee of discretion,” Bull retorts.

“I'll hazard I can do more damage on my laptop sitting in my bedclothes before my first cup of Antivan Coffee than you can do in a year in the field.”

“Oh, so why do you need me?” Bull snorts. 

“Because every now and then, a trigger needs to be pulled,” the other man says.

“Or not pulled,” Bull points out. “It’s hard to tell in your pyjamas.”

The Quartermaster’s mouth quirks and Bull feels himself warm up to the man. Useless as this one may appear, The Inquisitor didn’t hire people on their good looks.

“Q,” he acquiesces, offering a hand.

“007,” Q replies, matching his grin. They shake, and then Q gets down to business. He hands Bull an envelope with something thick weighting down one end. “Ticket to Nevarra City and a passport. Make sure they open it to check your photo – there’s a sigil in there to ensure you aren’t investigated. Any record they take will disappear after a few hours.”

“Thanks,” Bull says gruffly, not quite ready to admit how useful that was. Remaining inconspicuous was hard enough without an Interpol agent on your ass. 

“And there’s these,” Q continues, passing him a lockable snake box. Bull opened it to find a standard issue gun. “Our most efficient yet, of course, but this one is coded and enchanted with your DNA – only you can fire it. Less of a random killing machine, more of a personal statement.”

“And this?” Bull asks, pointing out an empty section of the box clearly set aside for some gadget.

“Ah yes.” Q pulls a small metal square from his pocket and hands it over. “Standard issue radio transmitter. Activate it, and it will broadcast your location – a distress signal. If it’s crushed, it will self destruct. And that’s it.”

“A gun and a radio,” Bull says, a little underwhelmed. “Not exactly feast day, is it?”

“You were expecting a mind-blast wristwatch?” Q snarks with a hint of amusement. “We don’t really go in for those anymore.”

“Shame,” Bull replies, half meaning it.

“I’ll see what I can do for your next mission. Now then, good luck in the field, 007. Try not to die.”

“Noted.” 

Bull watches him leave, and realises he doesn’t quite have a grasp on the new Quartermaster. Vain, yes, but overconfident? He’s not sure. There’s something off beneath that flamboyant bravado, and Bull is intrigued, though he has no right to be. Shaking his head, he takes one last glance at the painting before him and leaves the gallery.


	2. Pilot

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I can't technology; please ignore bizarre satellite usage and assume complex magic is involved.

On his next mission, he narrowly escapes being overwhelmed by a group of Venatori by activating his new mind-blast wristwatch and divesting a stunned brute of his machete as he runs from the room. Bursting out of the door into an unfamiliar corridor, Bull freezes for a moment, uncertain.

“Turn left,” a familiar voice crackles through his broken earpiece. Bull starts, but follows the instruction.

“Are you telling me you guys have had a connection the whole time?” he growls angrily as he runs.

“Don’t be ridiculous,” Q says, “It’s taken me this long to cobble together a long-distance fix. I had to highjack an Orlesian satellite for this and Agent Montiliyet will likely have my head for it. Now concentrate, 007. At the end of the hall, there’s a stairwell. Head up to the roof, where you’ll find a spellbinder and two grunts.”

Bull wants to question the logic of moving upwards in a building you’re trying to get out of, but he hears a gunshot from down the corridor and shoves the thought aside, hurrying to follow Q’s directions. The Venatori are present, just like Q said, and Bull takes a minute to dispatch them with his stolen machete.

“Now what?” he demands, yanking the blade out of the spellbinder’s throat.

“In the north-west corner of the building, behind the air conditioning units, there’s a fire escape. You’ll have to climb down the drainpipe to get to it, but then you’re home free. Nightingale is sending another agent to pick you up two blocks north of your current position. Anyway, duty calls. Try not to die – I would notice you were gone.”

With that heart-warming extension of his usual quip, Q crackles off the line, and Bull focuses on not getting his horns shot off.

Bull grows to like having Q in his ear, even when he’s making unkind comments about Bull’s propensity for unnecessary violence or his (lack of) fashion sense. He rarely sees the man in person, Bull being out in the field longer than most and Q having to coordinate an enormous network of agents and intelligence, but its enough that he notices how Q likes his coffee in a decorative Orlesian teacup and prefers to use his left hand despite his ambidexterity. He also sees that the Quartermaster often forgets to eat when he’s stressed, and that a pretty young cryptologist with the codename The Bard keeps bringing him little pastries and sandwiches and flirtatious smiles. He doesn’t think Q’s interested, but he’s not sure. He’s also not sure why that bothers him.


	3. Glitch

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A little more Sean Connery than Daniel Craig, but honestly, could Bull go three chapters without blowing something up?

Nightingale calls him personally for his next mission, and there are dark circles under her eyes that can’t be hidden by immaculate makeup. Her perfect professionalism is slipping too, and Bull narrows his eyes as her fingers tap irritably on her desk. Something big is going down, and it’s not good news for the Inquisition. 

“Iron Bull, thank you for coming. Please sit down,” Nightingale greets him in her fluid accent, indicating the empty guest chair. Behind her, the window is nearly half-concealed beneath a layer of snow, and it’s casting a depressing grey tone to the room.

“We need you to go after a potential informant for a current high priority case. His name is Maddox.” She hands him a file and he flicks through it quickly, noting the man’s associates and his status with a little surprise.

“A tranquil, working with the red templars?” he inquires. Nightingale shrugs.

“Apparently Samson helped him escape the Kirkwall Chantry bombing,” she tells him. “But right now, we need him to talk about how the hell Samson managed to compromise one of our agents.”

“Shit,” Bull frowns, “Who’d they get?” 

“Need to know, I’m afraid. The Inquisitor is keeping this one very close to home.”

Bull nods, not really expecting an answer anyway. He takes the file and stands up, waiting for any further instructions. Nightingale dismisses him and he leaves straight away, stopping only to flirt with his handler’s flustered secretary on the way past. Despite her years of experience destroying people's lives via Orlesian scandal, Montiliyet blushes to the very roots of her hair. In an attempt to change the subject, she promptly puts her foot in her mouth with a comment about the qunari being a little too big for a spook, causing Bull's smirk to widen. 

“Not in that way!” she clarifies hastily. Bull gives a booming laugh.

“So quick to offend me!” he replies, and offers to show her how big. Montiliyet chokes on her tea and he leaves the room, snickering.

An hour later, he’s heading for an old Tevinter site touted to be Samson’s most recent hide out in Northern Orlais. When he arrives, it’s clear that someone’s been expecting him – even from outside the tall stone building, he can see the clouds of telltale smoke rising and the distinct lack of sound from within. Nonetheless, he takes out the two watchmen with clean headshots from a silenced pistol, then shakes off his forest camouflage and heads stealthily inside. Or so he thinks. As soon as he steps foot in the main courtyard, a cry goes up and he realises there was in fact a third guard on the battlements – and who sets up camp in a place with battlements, honestly? 

Bull ducks behind a stack of crates as the red templars start to fire, then hurriedly backs away from the crates as he catches sight of the word VOLATILE stamped across them. He takes out the third guard above him and two of the other men in three easy motions, then curses as he’s forced to combat roll away from the huge shards of red lyrium that have just erupted from the ground, knocking the gun from his hand and bringing him face-to-face with a horror. Before the ugly thing can start its magical mojo bullshit, Bull bends forward and charges it as hard as he can, shattering the red lyrium bursting from its skin and sending it flying back into a makeshift barrier the templars have constructed. Meanwhile, one of the grunts has made his way over to him, brandishing a small knife. Resisting the urge to roll his eyes, Bull kicks the weapon out of his hand and punches the man square in the face, before pushing him onto one of the red lyrium shards with a sickening sound.   
Before he can catch his breath, a red blur moved in his peripheral vision and he barely manages to dodge the enormous red fist of the behemoth, feeling the ground shake as it slams into the ground beside him instead. He dodges the beast twice more, brain scrambling around for available resources and he curses Q for being so stingy with his tech. That’s when he remembers the radio transmitter. The next time the creature hits, Bull dashes around to its back and rams the thing with his horns, sending it teetering forward into the VOLATILE crates. Then he digs the transmitter from his pocket, stamps it into the ground, and kicks it towards the behemoth. 

Nothing happens. 

The behemoth gets back on its feet, and Bull grumbles under his breath.  
“Lying ‘vints! Oh, it’ll self destruct my a– shit!” Bull throws himself to the ground as he sees the tiny flash, just in time for the chemical explosion to send bits of behemoth and human alike shooting across the courtyard with an incredible amount of noise. Once the crates have stopped igniting, Bull staggers to his feet, ears ringing, and stumbles into the main building. He makes it through to Samson’s office with little more than a few bruises and a singed uniform, but as soon as he walks through the door, he knows he’s too late.

Maddox is slumped on the floor next to a great oak desk, his hand loosening around an empty bottle of what looks to be deathroot extract. Bull stalks over and presses his fingertips against the man’s throat, only to have his suspicions confirmed. He swears to himself and settles for doing a thorough sweep of the room, heading straight for the fire that’s been started by the corner. He pulls off Maddox’s coat and uses it to smother the flame, stamping out the remaining flickers with his boot. He wraps his hand in the coat sleeve and reaches down to flick the papers onto the tiles, where they can cool. The first file he grabs is a personnel file, stamped with TARG- in stereotypical red lettering. The documents are nearly blackened all over, but the top left hand corner, where the target’s details and photograph are, is still intact. Bull feels his stomach drop as he sees a grainy CCTV image of a familiar face and the text beside it. Name: Dorian Pa–. Alias: Quartermaster (Q).   
To quote his most trusted dwarven contact: well, shit.


	4. Rogue

He picks up some more evidence, including another personnel file for Agent Roderick Asignon/The Chancellor (terminated), a damaged USB and something that looks like enchanting equipment, before he leaves the compound and jogs back to his rental car, left on the edge of the forest. His mind is buzzing, trying to figure out his next step, and he nearly returns to HQ on autopilot before he realises that would be a grand mistake.

If Samson has files on key Inquisition agents like that, he’s got someone in the Inquisitor’s circle, someone significantly higher ranking than Bull. Someone who alerted Samson before Nightingale could send somebody after Maddox. If he wants to help Q, he realises, he’s going to have to go dark. He pulls the car over on the side of the highway and digs a standard issue army knife from his bag, popping a couple of elfroot pills before using the weapon to remove the tracking device in his arm. He vents a series of disgusting curses in qunlat as it comes out, but it’s out, and intact, and the bleeding from his arm is minimal. He sticks an elfroot dressing over the cut and leaves the keys in the ignition before heading on foot to the nearest train station. He sticks his tracker into the seat of a train headed north, then takes one in the opposite direction and stops at one of his safe houses in Val Royeaux. From there, he uses a disposable mobile to call someone he actually trusts.

“The Drunken Druffalo, this is John speaking, how can I-?”

“–Krem, it’s me, The Iron Bull,” he interrupts hastily.

“Chief!” He can practically hear Krem beaming down the line, “What do you need? If you’re after some muscle, the Chargers are on a thing in Ferelden but –“

“No, no, it’s you I’m after,” Bull tells him, “Sorry, I’m on a tight schedule. I need to you find an Inquisition agent who’s been compromised. There’s a leak high up in our organisation, so I can’t be on the record. First name, Dorian, known as the Quartermaster. He’s –“

“I know who the Quartermaster is, Boss, honestly. I’ll get my people on it. And I can find the leak for you, too.”

“Thanks, Krem. I owe you one.”

“No you don’t, Chief! Saved my life, remember? Well, maybe a drink. Give me a location and I’ll send a guy when I find something.”

Against his instincts, he rattles off the street of his safehouse, rather than wasting time arranging a more discrete location.   
Krem and the Chargers have an underworld information network wide enough to rival the Nightingale’s, and twice as deep, so Bull isn’t surprised when a beggar slinks into the alley a few hours later and settles by the apartment bins. Bull heads downstairs to meet him with his gun in his waistband, just in case. The young man is dirty and ragged, with a green hoodie bundled around his frame and a paper coffee cup set up next to his feet. Bull bends down to drop a few coins in the cup and the beggar slips him a Rivaini restaurant menu from inside his jacket.  
“Maker guide you, Messere.”   
By the time he’s managed to steal a car and get to the location, it’s late in the afternoon, the sun hanging lazily on the horizon as he breaks into the modernised kitchen of an old chateau.  
At this stage in the game, Bull isn’t really expecting Q to be alive. He’s half expecting him to be unconscious and severely injured. The man’s not a field agent, after all, and once the templars have gotten everything they need out of him, he knows they’ll likely shoot the Quartermaster and sink him in the nearest lake.

What he’s not expecting is to find the chateau’s west wing covered in scorch marks and dead templars, fresh blood pooling over marble tiles and spattered over the decorative wallpaper.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Are these chapters okay? I'm never sure when to split them as my original work is usually a massive unreadable block of text...


	5. AV

Bull’s first guess is that there was some sort of infighting going on, as there’s a body pinned against the wall with what looks like a red lyrium blade. However, as he approaches the main hall of the house, his theory begins to weaken – no commander would allow what must be fifteen of his most trusted men to kill each other in the middle of a high-priority operation, surely. Bull silently slips past a number of ornate chambers and then finds himself on the balcony surrounding the main hall, concealing himself behind a pillar. Usually, he’d like to charge in, shoot a few people, then smash the rest to a pulp, but he also knows that’s why Nightingale very rarely sends him into hostage situations, so he takes stock of what’s happening on the floor below.   
There are two gunmen guarding the main entrance, and another lying dead on the floor nearby. Samson has dragged a chair onto the first tier of the enormous staircase like some mockery of a judge above a court, and is glaring at Q, who has been forced to his knees at the base of the stairs, flanked by a templar shadow and another soldier. The Quartermaster is covered in blood, his fancy robes torn open at the back to reveal a patchwork covering of cuts and bruises. His silly leather boots are conspicuously absent, as is his elaborate staff harness, and his tracking device has been removed from his arm with considerably less care than Bull’s. He is slouched forward, but clearly conscious, and seemingly not concerned for his own wellbeing.

“Forgive me if I’m overstepping, old chap, but the heraldry in this room is shockingly outdated. Not to mention the way it clashes horribly with all the blood.”

Samson growls and the soldier by Q’s shoulder cuffs him roughly on the back of his head.

“You magister scum think you’re so far above the rest of us, don’t you?” The commander spits, getting to his feet. He stalks down the stairs and grabs Q by the hair, forcing his head back to look at him. “Those soldiers out there were my men! Maker knows, if I can’t make you talk, I’ll have you join them,” Samson snarls, and suddenly there’s a wicked looking knife in his hands and Bull’s moving towards the top of the stairs before he can think. Samson holds the knife up to Q’s throat and Bull knows he’s never going to get there before the Quartermaster bleeds out, but then Q speaks.

“They were your men, Samson, but not any more.”

 

In a heartbeat, Samson and the two closest men are flying back from the force of a mind blast, and then purple shadows seem to glide from Q’s chest, darting away in the blink of an eye. One of them hits the dead gunman on the stairs, and suddenly he’s not dead at all, getting up despite the fatal wound at the back of his head and shooting down one of the templars near the door. Bull swears under his breath, barely able to reconcile his image of the preening Quartermaster with this deadly necromancer before him. With a roar, Samson sends a silence and a smite forceful enough to knock Q down, head hitting the ground with an ominous crack, but it’s too late.  
Even as Bull roars and charges in, four more dead templars enter the room and begin the attack, killing the two remaining guards so that only Samson and the shadow remain. The shadow slices two of the templars in half, and starts on the third, but Bull intervenes, sending a bullet that shatters its arm. The creature screams and Samson whips around to glance at Bull before fleeing the room, pursued by the remaining undead. Bull aims three more bullets at the shadow, but it’s so damn fast, nearly blurring out of his vision as it dodges the attack, and he’s got maybe two seconds to live before –

Q’s barrier springs to life just as the shadow’s blade slams home, and the creature shrieks again as it’s thrown back into the banister. Bull wastes no time in shooting it through the skull – or what’s left of its skull – and he puts two more bullets in it for good measure. When he looks up, Q is lying on his front, propped up on his elbows and coughing up blood. Bull hastens down the stairs and drops to his knees beside the mage, remembering that the blood all over his colleague doesn’t just belong to red templars.

“Nice of you to show up,” Q quips as Bull helps him to sit up, “Even if you are a little beyond fashionably late. And good god, man, if The Enchantress saw you wearing brogues with that suit she would murder you.”

“You know, maybe I should just leave you here, if all you’re going to do is complain,” Bull gripes, hauling Q to his feet and dragging him towards the stairs. Beneath them, the ground shakes and Q glances towards the main door when a roar sounds too close by.

“You know, I’ve always liked brogues,” he comments, “Now do hurry along, man – I believe that was Samson’s pet behemoths.”

“I’ve taken down a behemoth before,” Bull says casually, shooting Q a grin.

“You haven’t taken down five,” Q replies grimly, and Bull quickens his pace. 

It takes them significantly less time to exit the building once Q produces a length of reinforced grappling hook wire from his robes with a comment about red templar searching methods, and Bull just can’t help himself.

“So unprofessional,” he agrees, and Q nods, “If I’d been searching you, you’d be entirely naked and probably tied to a bed.” Q splutters indignantly and Bull snorts again, shoving Q out of the window and lowering the mage down into the garden. Q’s still fuming by the time Bull follows him down, but Bull feels it was worth it. Q is clearly struggling to walk by the time they reach Bull’s car, and the agent mutters to himself, frustrated – he knows he doesn’t have time to do first aid if they want to get out alive. Instead, he bundles Q into the passenger side and sets off, heading for the bustle and anonymity of Val Royeaux. 

“Back to HQ?” Q wheezes, holding a ragged part of his outfit against the wound on his arm.

“No,” Bull says, glancing at his speedometer and accelerating slightly. “They’ve got someone on the inside, and it’s got to be high up, the amount of information they had on you. We’re going to one of my personal hideouts.”

“They usually buy me dinner first,” Q mumbles, and Bull lets out a surprised chuckle. “Then again, they usually aren’t great strapping Ben Hassrath trained agents, either. Does anyone else know we’re here?” 

“I’m going to let Nightingale in on it once we get to Val Royeaux, and a freelance friend of mine is working on sourcing the leak, but beyond that, nobody knows.”

“Excellent. I’m sorry to be a bore, 007, but I’m afraid the waking world is leaving me,” Q announces, shortly before he slumps back against his seat.


	6. System Recovery

By the time they’ve arrived at yet another nondescript apartment tucked away on the outskirts of the city’s alienage, Bull is speaking exclusively in swearwords and checking Q’s pulse every few minutes, his mind torn with indecision. On his own, he would have ditched the car miles back and taken five routes to shake off unwelcome eyes before he dared make a stop. With a half-dead Vint on his hands, he can’t decide between safety and speed, so he ends up parking the car with the dumpsters whilst he drags the unconscious Quartermaster upstairs, then risks leaving his charge alone whilst he drives a fifteen minute loop around the city and leaves the car on the other side of the alienage with the keys in the ignition. He strides back through the alienage on foot, happy to rely on the elves’ hatred of templars to keep his presence concealed. Q is half-awake when he makes it upstairs, eyes opened into pained slits and blood still spreading over the bedcovers in alarming capacity. He remains silent, watching as Bull pulls out his first aid kit and three healing potions, then heaves himself up into a sitting position with a hoarse gasp so that he can down them one after the other.

“Woah, aren’t those things addictive?” Bull cautions him with a raised eyebrow.

“Post-torture perk,” Q quips, swallowing the last one with a grimace, “I’m not generally one of you strong and silent brutes.”

“Funny. I couldn’t stop picturing you as Rambo,” Bull shoots back, rolling his eyes as he picks out a switchblade and moves to cut Q’s robes from his wounded torso. Q flinches away with a scandalised expression and undoes the clasp at his shoulder, pushing the fabric down to his waist with a bitten-off groan.

“I hate to break it to you, princess, but I think your party dress is ruined already.”

“It was a Saphi piece in highever weave,” Q informs him haughtily, “It deserves to die with dignity.”  
His posturing vanishes as Bull addresses the battle’s aftermath on his back, replaced by hissed Tevinter curses and a variety of creative new terms for red templars that Bull is honestly upset he didn’t come up with himself. He ends on a low note – bloody motherfucking templars – as the last dressing goes on, and then narrows his eyes at the needle in Bull’s hand.

“And what do you think you’re doing with that?”

“Your arm needs stitches.”

Q’s eyes flicker to the ugly black tangle holding the qunari’s own arm together and he closes his eyes with a pained expression.  
“Maker preserve me,” he whispers, and his tone aches with so much sorrow that Bull thinks maybe he’s breaching some weird Vint religious protocol.

“Uh… sorry, is there a problem?” he asks, concerned.  
Q’s eyes flicker back open, creased around the edges.

“I’m going to scar,” he says forlornly. 

 

Bull barely refrains from smacking himself in the face and settles on pushing the needle through Q’s skin slightly quicker than necessary.  
“Agh!”  
“I cannot believe I just watched you murder thirty people in cold blood,” Bull tells him flatly, shaking his head as Q looks down, horrified, at his arm.  
“Well, I don’t bloody well care if they scar,” Q replies primly, fixing his moustache with his free hand. “I was beautiful, and now I have a butchered arm and no clothes.”

“Next time, I’ll get your robes out instead of you,” Bull grumbles, half-heartedly trying to make the stitches neater than his own. Q is silent as he finishes his work, and then a light hand presses into Bull’s shoulder and he turns to look the Vint in the eye.

“Thank you, really,” Q tells him. “I know you didn’t do it on Nightingale’s orders.” He pauses, flickering back away from sincerity as though it burns. “I’ll owe you one, of course. Anything you want in the field is yours – neurotoxin grenades, exploding cufflinks, or a good old fashioned axe – though that would be a considerable waste of my extensive talents, of course.”  
Bull snorts and stands up with a handful of blood-soaked gauze.

“I’ll be lucky if I don’t get court-martialled, or whatever the hell happens to rogue Inquisition agents. Disowned. Assassinated,” he ponders.  
Q drags himself to his feet with a huff.

“Oh, don’t worry about that. A friend of mine has the best lawyers in Thedas – won against the Director of Public Prosecutions herself, despite his breaking the law multiple times. The first time Pentaghast has lost a case in her entire career, I’d hazard. Tethras is made of gold and a silver tongue.”

“Tethras as in Varric Tethras? The informant-come-writer?” Bull queries, firmly pushing the quartermaster back down, “I thought they got him on sale of state secrets?”  
Q smirks.

“They tried. It ended with Tethras suing them for defamation and copyright breach for using his book plots in their mission reports. He was very generous and only insisted on them paying his court fees.”   
Bull can’t help but laugh at that, and Q’s smile widens too. However, the moment is short-lived as Bull’s phone goes off, and he answers it with a muttered greeting. 

“This is John from the Drunken Druffalo just returning your–“

“Krem, it’s still me,” Bull cuts off his paranoid contact before he can ramble his cover story, and the other man clears his throat.

“Right, boss. Well, I did some digging, and we’ve found your leak. Bloke named Butler, mid-level rank, known for having a bit of a sketchy past apparently. The intel left his account three days ago and he hasn’t been seen since.”

There’s no way in hell Bull believes that Butler’s the source, but he also knows Krem’s reach is limited within the Inquisition, so he takes what he can get.  
“Thanks, Krem. Say, you think you’d be able to get a message to a… friend of mine in the Inquisition? Codename Ghost, goes by Cole, though I doubt that’s his name. I trust him to let the right people know what’s going on.”

“I’ll see what I can do, Chief.”

“Great.”

Bull ends the call and looks over to see Q staring at him expectantly. 

“The leak’s a guy called Butler –”

“No it’s not,” Q says immediately. “Butler’s a double agent, but we’ve had him pegged from the beginning. I make sure he never gets his hands on anything important, and we pretend not to know so that we can track his connections. The man can barely check his email, never mind hack me.”

Bull nods, accepting this new piece of information.

“Well, it sure wasn’t going to be someone on a paycheck like his,” he commented. “I guess you heard I contacted Nightingale, so I’m thinking we lay low until she gives us the green.”

“She’ll never get to the leak before they disappear. Whoever it is, they’re either brilliant, or one of the Inquisitor’s personal advisors. Yes, my security measures are just that good,” he adds before Bull can interrupt him. “If you want to get the bastard, and judging by your single-minded bloodthirsty qunari-ness, you probably do, I need to get somewhere with a computer and an excellent wifi connection.”

“So you’re not concerned at all about being seen in Val Royeaux when there’s probably a bounty on both our heads?” Bull asks, mildly surprised.

“Of course I am, don’t be ridiculous. That’s why you’re going to go into the alienage and bring back some clothes for me, along with a hat, some makeup, and a USB drive, yes?” Q speaks like he’s in Bull’s ear on a mission and Bull can’t help but respond.

“Yessir,” he quips, throwing his phone over to the bed. “Just in case. If I’m not back in an hour, call Krem.”

“Thank you.”

It is dark when Bull returns with two sets of Quartermaster sized clothes and a decent meal for them both, and Q reluctantly agrees to postpone his investigation until the morning. Bull suspects this has less to do with Q giving in to his reasoning and is more likely due to the additional injuries Q treated in the bathroom whilst he was out. There’s still blood dotted on the sink and up the sides of the bath, but Bull doesn’t mention it. Despite the flamboyance, he’s getting the feeling that Q is intensely private even for an agent, and he feels an irrational spike of guilt that he knows Q’s name. Dorian. It fits so well that it’s nearly slipped past him a couple of times, but he’s determined to let Q give it in his own time.


	7. Backdoor

Q looks so bizarre out of his fancy mage outfits that Bull can barely stop looking at him. The Vint is dressed in plain black jeans, a navy button down, a large scarf and a cable knit beanie, his bruised face artfully concealed and his hair styled forward to obscure his eyes. Bull has provided him with one of his many, many spare radio earpieces, as they have both agreed that whilst Q may pass as a wayward hipster, six feet and ten inches of hulking qunari in a suit would not go unnoticed. Instead, he remains hunched in the driver seat of a hideous mustard yellow car they had… borrowed… from the apartment car park. Initially, Q had refused to get into it. 

“An Emporium Cactus?” he’d said, disbelieving. “What in the maker’s name possessed them to build this?”

Admittedly, Bull isn’t a big fan of the Emporium’s choice in design either, but as he’d pointed out, it was either that, a Harley Davidson, or a hot pink Thalsian M5, neither of which were very subtle. 

“Regular salted caramel machiatto, please, no cream but plenty of syrup,” Dorian’s voice buzzes in his ear.

“You’re such a Vint it hurts to listen to,” Bull tells him, trying to picture the ridiculous drink he’d just heard described.

“I’m pretending to be a hipster,” Q mutters defensively. “And they are quite nice if you pretend you’d never voluntarily order it,” he adds. Bull listens to the scrape of a chair against tiles and the chink of coins being added to the pay station.

“All right, I’m set up. Dear Andraste’s bosoms, I’ve not used technology as ancient as this since I was fifteen. What is this? Internet Explorer? You have got to be jok- ah, yes, thank you. Oh did I? Oh, no, keep the change, you lovely thing.”   
Bull likes to imagine that this is exactly how Q feels when he is flirting with waiters on the other end of a radio. As in, a little bit neglected.

“Quit chasing tail and hack the damn thing,” he grumbles, accidentally tearing the fabric in the car roof when he shakes his head. Q gripes back, but his conversation tails out into fierce tapping on the keyboard and the occasional swearword. After ten minutes of this, Q groans and there is the sound of a head hitting a desk. 

“What’s up?”

“This is useless. It’s like – picking a lock with a battering ram. Actually, you’re probably the type to go for a battering ram over a lock pick, so ignore that analogy. I can’t even – oh venhedis, oh, bollocks–“

“What?”

“Someone’s in this computer. We need to – no, wait. It can’t be. It’s a Red Jenny,” Q sounds somewhere between awe and disbelief, and Bull wants to throttle him.

“What?” he demands, throwing his hands up in front of the steering wheel.

“The Friends of Red Jenny – they’re this hacker group that go after big corporations and corrupt governments, like, ah, like Robin Hood, but in computers. To be honest, I didn’t really think they were real, I mean, I’ve never been able to track one but – oh they’re – do you have your phone? Note this down. People say you lot are special. I want to help, and I can bring everyone. There's a baddie in Val Royeaux. I hear he wants to hurt you. Have a search for the red things in the market, the docks, and 'round the cafe, and maybe you'll meet him first. Bring guns.”

“The hell does that mean?” Bull asks. Q doesn’t seem to hear.

“The market, the market… ebay? No, too obvious. The Black Emporium.” He types frantically again. “Yes! Red handkerchief, listing number… And the docks…”

Bull realises that he’s not going to get anything more out of Dorian for a while, so he goes back to playing SwampWitch on his phone. So sue him, it’s addictive.

“Got it!” Q chimes in his ear, “I’m coming back out.”

As the Quartermaster climbs into the car, Bull’s game is interrupted by a call from on unknown number. He fights the instinct to toss the device into the nearest river and instead picks up, working on a hunch.

“Bull.”

“Nightingale,” he replies, the relief thick in his voice. “What’s happening?”

“I’m no closer to finding our leak on this end, though I’ve ruled out a fair few suspects. Having to do everything silently is slowing me down,” his handler explained, “I take it you’re laying low with the Quartermaster?”

“Well… sort of. We might have a lead. Q was trying to hack our systems when this group contacted him, the Red Jessies –“

“– the Friends of Red Jenny are involved? That is interesting. What did they give him?”

Bull pauses to mouth the question at Q, who gestures impatiently for him to hand over the phone.  
“Hel– Yes, Leliana, I’m fine. No, they didn’t– They don’t know anything. But we might have something – the Red Jennies have given me a location and a time for a meet-up between Samson and his spy. Of course. Yes, of course. The only problem is that the meeting takes place in just over an hour so… Ok. I’ll keep you in the loop.”

Dorian hangs up and then his eyes slide over to Bull.

“How do you feel about a short surveillance operation?” He asks cheerfully. Bull smirks back.

“Exceptionally curious,” he replies, “I can get Krem to source some gear?”

“Sounds like a plan.”


	8. Spyware

It is around an hour later that Q discovers Krem’s incredible tenacity, or as Bull would say, his bronto-headed stubbornness. Having muscled his way into participating in the mission, he is sulking in the driver’s seat of his dry-cleaners’ van as they drive toward their destination – a half-renovated church just inside the city.

“I’m a field kind of man, Boss. I can back you up!” he says for what might be the fortieth time. Bull groans in response.

“I swear, Krem, if your ass isn’t continuously inside this vehicle for the next three hours, I’m going to tell Skinner about that time –“

“– Boss!” Krem is clearly appalled and Q tilts his head, curious.

“I’ll tell her! You stay here with Q and get ready to take off quickly if needs be.”

Bull finishes attaching a minute camera to his shirt button and threads the wire back to the transmitter on his waistband. 

“All good,” Q announces from behind his laptop screen. Krem pulls over into a shaded parking space and very huffily brings his binoculars up to his face to check for lurking templars. The area they’ve stopped in is run-down in a traditional sort of way, with crumbling garden walls and cracked flagstones for the pavement, but it lacks the litter and filth of the slums. The sun has just started to set, leeching the last of the warmth from the autumn day and casting distorted shadows over the yellowing suburban lawns. The walls around the church grounds are higher than Bull’s horns, but they know from their research that there is only a small patch of brambles between the outer wall and the building, making it the most likely route to entering unseen. Bull doesn’t fancy his chances trying to sneak through a graveyard. 

Krem declares the coast clear and Bull exits the van, moving quickly towards the wall. As he hoists himself up onto the wall, his shoes scrape loudly enough that he can hear them over the wind and he cringes internally but of course, no alarms blare and no gunshots break the evening air. He takes a deep breath, looks around once more, and jumps nimbly to land on the stone ledge outside a window barricaded shut with plastic sheeting. 

“How on earth does someone that large move with that much agility?” he hears Q mutter in his ear. Krem snorts in the background and says something about Pilates, but Bull ignores it in favour of sliding his knife through the plastic in order to peer into the vast hall within. It seems to be empty. He silently widens the hole until there is a sizeable flap that he can squirm under and just like that, he’s inside, in amongst the pews on the upstairs viewing platform. He sneaks forward to peer down into the main section of the church and catches sight of two gunmen making their way down the aisles, checking under each row of pews as they go… looking for bombs, perhaps? Either way, they seem to have already checked the upstairs section, or at least don’t find it a threat.

“Clear,” one of them barks into a radio as they reach the fire escape near the altar. 

“Remarkable timing,” Q remarks as Samson stalks in, flanked by a horror and a shadow. Bull melts back into the shadows, hand on his gun.

“I could take Samson out right now,” he breathes into his mic. “No helmet. One headshot.”

“Bull, don’t,” Q hisses firmly. “This could be our only chance to get the mole.”

Bull huffs quietly, but his hand relaxes on his gun. Samson has positioned himself at the back of the church, leaning stiffly against a statue of Andraste and fidgeting impatiently. The shadow and the horror have started patrolling the edges of the room and Bull makes a mental note to make sure neither of them decides to sweep upstairs. 

“There’s someone going through the graveyard gates,” Bull hears Krem say, “Looks Tevinter.”

“We’ll find out any minute now,” Dorian replies. 

Sure enough, the main door of the church is swept open, and a thin man wrapped in a rich Tevinter cloak steps inside, a pointed hood covering his greying hair and shadowing his face.

“That – Is that? Bull, move closer,” Dorian demands, his voice strained with tension. Bull casts an eye around for the shadow and the horror before complying, giving the camera a clear shot of the mole. The man below pushes back his hood.

“I apologise for my late arrival, Samson,” he says with a short bow, “The Inquisition is making it ever more difficult for me to travel unchecked.”  
Bull barely hears the first sentence over the sharp intake of breath from Q, followed by a flurry of Tevinter swearwords.

“How could he? That fool!” The Quartermaster snarls. 

“Who is it?” Bull hisses.

“Gereon Alexius,” Q sighs, “The Inquisition’s Quartermaster during the Darkspawn uprising. My personal mentor.”

“The guy with the AI?” Krem pipes up. Q ignores him.

“Bull, keep listening. I must know how this happened,” he instructs. There is a noise of protest from Krem, but Bull does as he always has and follows the order.

“… but my master does not wish to reveal himself unnecessarily,” Alexius is saying.

“So Corypheus expects me to send my men,” Samson replies, seemingly unconvinced. “And destroying this safehouse…”

“Haven,” the other man supplies.

“Destroying Haven will help our cause how?”

“A number of key informants and –“

Bull hears the step behind him at exactly the same moment he realises the shadow has disappeared and he throws himself to the ground fast enough that the red blade nicks his arm rather than impaling him through the chest. His gun is up before he hits the floor and his bullets shatter the creature’s skull before it can take another swipe, but his relief is short lived as pain cracks through his temple and a cold ring of metal presses into the back of his head.


	9. System Purge

Bull hears the step behind him at exactly the same moment he realises the shadow has disappeared and he throws himself to the ground fast enough that the red blade nicks his arm rather than impaling him through the chest. His gun is up before he hits the floor and his bullets shatter the creature’s skull before it can take another swipe, but his relief is short lived as pain cracks through his temple and a cold ring of metal presses into the back of his head. “Drop it,” the gunman snarls and Bull complies, kicking the weapon away from himself.

“Tell them we’ll negotiate,” Dorian is snapping in his ear. “Tell them we have prisoners of theirs we can release. Tell them – “ 

The earpiece is ripped out along with the camera and Bull allows himself to be prodded to his feet and pushed down the stairs.

“You again,” Samson spits upon seeing him, “There will be Inquisition agents swarming any minute!” He roars, pulling out his gun. 

“No!” Alexius protests, “He’s rogue! He went dark two days ago and nothing’s been heard since. We may not be compromised yet.”

“Yet?” Samson whirls around to stare at him.

“He’s working with the Quartermaster, no? I suspect the camera and earpiece are being recorded directly to a safe location, ready to be passed on to the Inquisition at a later date. Let me talk to the Quartermaster,” Alexius asks. 

Samson nods curtly and the gunman takes the earpiece over to him, gun pointed levelly at Bull’s head the whole while. Samson growls something at the other gunman, who steps forward to pat Bull down, removing his knife and pistol. Bull strains to hear Alexius as they force him over to the side of the room and handcuff him to a radiator. 

“… Dorian, I’m sorry. Felix… I had no choice. Bring the records or I’m afraid the Iron Bull will die. You have ten minutes.” 

Bull knows, of course, that the latter option was the only one. If Q complies, they’ll only kill him too, and Q knows that. Bull is one agent, mere collateral damage in the grand scheme of things. If Samson is allowed to bring down Haven, every mission over the last year would be for nothing. He knows this, and he runs every possible method for escape through his mind, over and over. The church door opens and Bull tenses, waiting for an opportunity that would probably never arrive. He does not expect Q to stride into the room, head held high despite the fact his wrists are zip-tied behind his back and there’s a gun jammed against his spine. His mind whirls. What the hell is Q playing at?

“Alexius,” the Quartermaster says coldly. “What an unpleasant surprise.” The venom in his tone is backed up with a great deal of hurt and Alexius seems to curl in on himself.

“My master has a cure for Felix. The cure for the Blight.”

“The Blight is a biological weapon programmed to kill,” Q hisses, “There is no cure. Why would Darkspawn create one?”

“There is a cure,” Alexius begins firmly, but Samson cuts him off.

“Enough! Tell me where you’re keeping the recordings, or I’ll shoot you both,” he demands. Q’s eyes flicker over to meet Bull’s, and Bull tries to put as much menace into his expression as he can.

“Not Krem,” he mouths fiercely, barely able to believe the stupidity of this venture. Doesn’t Q realises he’s just signed a death warrant for them both?

Q rolls his eyes and turns back to Samson. 

“It’s already with the Inquisition, via four different encoded electronic transfers and a USB in a drop box nearby. There’s no way you can stop it.”  
Bull wants to slam his horns into the wall. 

“Well in that case, you’re just another liability,” Samson says calmly, clicking the safety off his gun.

“No!” Alexius exclaims, stepping in front of the younger man with his staff in hand, “That was not the deal! Dorian was to remain alive.”

“That was before he interfered with our mission!” Samson snapped. “You are not my only channel of communication with the Elder One, Alexius. Shall I tell him how you compromised all of his plans in order to save an Inquisition agent? Will he help your son then?”

The pain is so clear on Alexius’ face that for a moment Bull feels truly sorry for the man. However, that feeling disappears as soon as the magister’s head falls and he steps aside to give Samson a clear shot. 

“Alexius,” Q says brokenly.

“I’m sorry, Dorian.”

“No matter, because I’m afraid if you shoot me, we’ll all be joining the Maker,” Q says brazenly, his suave mask reappearing with one shake of his head. He awkwardly shrugs his high collared coat from his shoulders to reveal a steel band around his neck, glowing green with some sort of twisting, writhing magic Bull had never seen before.

“Familiar, Alexius?” Q drawls, his grin near manic. Alexius backs away instinctively and Samson’s gun hand lowers a little.

“Explain,” Samson growls at the magister.

“My old research – I was working with controlling the fabric of the universe, studying natural rifts in the veil,” Alexius babbles wildly, “I was trying to manipulate it into a physical force, but I could never generate the necessary energy. He’s done it somehow, I don’t know how, but –“

“What does it do?”

“This collar, much like the bands around my wrists and arms, are linked to small tears in the veil,” Q explains, very pleased with himself. “I’ve enchanted it in such a way as to preserve my own safety. If anything pierces my skin, a vast backlash of magical inter-dimensional energy will disintegrate everything within a mile radius. I am a walking bomb.”

“Remove the collar,” Samson barks at one of the gunmen. 

“Ha! You think any of you know how to break this enchantment without blowing us all to pieces?” Q asks casually. “Be my guest. I have nothing to lose.”  
The gunman glances at Samson, who shakes his head, furious.

“Well then,” Q says. “We seem to have arrived at an Orlesian stalemate.” 

Bull’s head snaps up at the familiar code phrase, and half a second later, the stained glass window above the altar shatters as a sniper’s bullet passes through on its way to embedding itself in the red templar horror. The horror lets out an ear-splitting shriek and that’s all it takes for complete chaos to ensue as three Inquisition agents burst through the same window Bull entered by and immediately begin firing at the remaining red templars. Samson’s response is to dive for cover, dragging Q in front of him as he goes. Alexius has his staff out and his barrier easily deflects the first wave of bullets, though the ice spell that follows nearly batters the shimmering field out of existence. Alexius flicks his staff around in a heartbeat and electricity rains down uncomfortably close to the metal pipes, and Bull is so caught up in watching and hoping he won’t get electrocuted that he almost doesn’t see Samson smite Q and tackle him to the ground.


	10. Termination

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Ah, cheesy use of title must signal the end

“Bull!” The quartermaster’s cry is choked off as Samson’s hands close over the smaller man’s throat and Bull fruitlessly tries to slip his hands free of the cuff. Q is struggling with enough fury that Samson is having a hard time keeping his grip, but Q’s hand’s are bound and Bull knows his injuries have him at a disadvantage. He glances back towards the main battle in time to see an agent take out a templar brawler with a clean headshot, but the triumph is short-lived as the inquisition mage tumbles from the balcony, unconscious. The two remaining shooters are good, but so is Alexius. 

Bull turns desperately back to Q, whose movements are looking more like spasms now, and closes his eyes. He takes a deep breath; in, out. Centres himself, braces his arm. Then he pushes forward with a roar, the pain in his wrist deafened by the sound of shattering plaster and twisting metal. Dragging the radiator piping behind him, Bull charges at Samson and with one solid strike to the jaw, knocks him away from Q, who immediately sucks in air in great wheezing breaths. The Quartermaster struggles to sit up and cough, and Bull casts his eyes around for something to cut the zip-ties around his wrists. Before he can try to crawl to the body of the templar that took his knife, Dorian hisses something in Tevinter and Bull flinches as a violet plume of smoke curls into existence, forming into a horrifically large skull before it drifts over and engulfs Alexius and the last standing templar. 

The effect is immediate and disturbing – whilst Alexius seems to show some resistance and only groans, his attacks failing, the templar screams and writhes, eyes blown wide for fear of something only he can see. The next sniper bullets take out the templar and slam into Alexius’ staff hand, causing him to drop the weapon with a cry. At some point, a very short Inquisition agent has ghosted down the stairs – she materializes from the shadows with a syringe and needle in hand and slips it into the magister’s neck without so much as blinking. Alexius drops like a stone, and the battle is over.

“Well, fuck,” Bull says mildly, turning back to Q. The mage is staring at the radiator pipe with an eyebrow raised.

“You didn’t just seriously rip the piping from the wall, you brute?” he asks hoarsely, somewhere between horrified and impressed. 

“If you think that’s good, you should see what these arm muscles can do in bed. Or against wall, whatever.”  
Q’s indignant sputtering is interrupted by a shout from one of the Inquisition agents, a burly human man with a shotgun strapped to his back. Bull curses himself as he sees what the agent has: Samson has disappeared through the fire door along with probably the only chance they had at catching him. 

“Blackwall!” the smallest agent shouts from where she’s crouched over the mage. “Call Nightingale, Solas needs a medic.”

“Aye,” the human says, stepping aside and booming into his transmitter. 

Meanwhile, Bull has retrieved his knife and released Q’s wrists, and he holds out an arm to help the Quartermaster to his feet. Q accepts graciously, and his hand lingers on Bull’s sleeve a little moment longer than necessary. 

“I’m on medical leave,” he says suddenly, avoiding Bull’s eye. “Nightingale told me so. She’s forcing me to take a week off.”

“I should bloody well think so,” Bull says, eyeing the angry marks on Q’s neck. His eyes fall on the glowing collar and he coughs nervously. “Uh… shouldn’t you be deactivating those things around about now?”  
Q follows his line of vision and then laughs, reaching up to pull the collar free in one simple movement. 

“They’re not real, Bull. It’s costume jewellery with an illusion cast over it. Using tears in the veil to power explosives? That’s still in the realm of science fiction, I’m afraid.”  
Bull shakes his head.

“But Alexius…”

“Alexius at least had the decency to play along with my scheme,” Q says, eyes deliberately hard, “I suppose he wasn’t all bad in the end. Losing Felix is hurting him badly. But that’s not what I want to think about. I want to think about medical leave.” Q shoots him a smile that’s hiding something and Bull frowns.  
“What about it?”

“You’re on medical leave too,” Q explains. “You’re to spend it in a discrete location staying out of trouble and focusing on your health. As am I.”

“I don’t suppose we could happen upon the same discrete location,” Bull replies with a grin.

“Don’t be ridiculous – how the neighbours would talk!” Q says primly. “I’ll be in your apartment in the Emerald Graves.”  
Bull is just about say something that would really give the neighbours something to talk about when Blackwall’s radio crackles into life a few paces away. 

“Not to be rude, right, but if you two ain’t gonna start bumping uglies right now, your sniper’s freezing her arse off on a poncy roof garden, not to mention my lady bits are shriv– ”

“– we’re coming, we’re coming,” Blackwall barks, hastily silencing the device. Bull realises that Nightingale has arrived with a posse of agents and medics without him even noticing, and he blinks at her, embarrassed. 

“You’re both free to go, but I expect reports by tomorrow evening,” the spymaster tells them, eyes a little softer now beneath her cowl. Q immediately makes a beeline for the door, but Nightingale grabs Bull’s arm in a frightening grip before he can leave and leans forward to hiss in his ear.

“If you break my Quartermaster, you’re paying for a new one, and trust me, you won’t find one that's half as fast.”

“Noted,” Bull says, feeling suitably threatened. When he pulls back, the radiator pipe falls to the floor with a clatter, and he realises she picked the handcuff locks in only a few seconds. “Noted,” he repeats.  
When he gets to the door of the church, a dwarven agent with a pair of hatchets stops him.

“Quartermaster said to give you this,” he says, and passes over a napkin with a note scribbled on it.

 

Gone to wash hair. Meet at EG. Bring wine.  
\- Dorian

 

Bull’s still not quite sure what to expect, but he supposes that’s just part of the trade. Dorian’s a little pretty for a Quartermaster, but then, he’s a little big for a spook.


End file.
